perhaps lately brought into Europe that their Cures were found out by and upon the Foundation of the ancient Method which is able to furnish a Physician not onely with means to find out the seat of any disease but also to apply appropriate remedies thereunto I have shewed in the third place that the Complication of Diseases cannot alter the general Method of curing them though it may cause a variation in the application of Remedies That the variation of Remedies according to the nature of Diseases in their Complication is the Office of a Physician who ties not himself to any Remedies delivered in Pharmacopoeus but ordering them pro re nata and that 't is impossible to give any general Method to cure any one complicated Disease as it is lodged in Peter because never any such Disease came twice alike in all circumstances nor can any Remedy be found out I am confident is not by this Undertaker that shall have that effect What the Chymists speak of their Sulphur fixum and their Vniversale solvens which shall have that power and also with some other help of Art shall six an imperfect Metall into Gold as I will not deny the truth of it so will I suspend my judgment till I shall be better convinced For all other Remedies in the preparation whereof Chymists have laboured I shall give them my ready thanks with much gratefulness of mind for their pains they have many of them made their Medicines and Preparations publick and daily use is made of them when this unknown M. N. makes us partakers of any of his betâ—er than what we know I shall readily return him my due thanks but must not believe some few moneths study of Chymistry under Mr. Johnson set up by the College of London for their use have made him so perfect an Artist as to know more than his Teachers in that Art The pretending to be Masters of great and universal Remedies and conceal what they are a practice now used by Odowd Manwairing and some others is a thing so unworthy a Scholar that I would not have this Author so like a Mountebank in any thing The Examination of the Sixth Chapter THus have I with all possible brevity run over his first Five Chapters which indeed contain most of what is Argumentative in his book I come to the Sixth which begins with a recapitulation of what he had formerly proved In the former we have had a taste of his Philosophy and Logick we shall now try his Logick alone and see whether the Conclusion drawn from the Premises now laid down be answerable to those of his first Chapter where he argues thus If Diseases are altered in their nature wholly from what they anciently were Then New Indagations new Causes new Cures must be found Physick and Surgery must be rebuilt from the very foundation But Diseases are wholly altered in their nature Therefore in his sixth Chapter he argues thus If there be now introduced in Men and Diseases as it were another nature Then The former Rules calculated for Curation from other Causes or from Causes less important are almost if not quite out of doors But Men and Diseases are as it were altered in their nature Therefore the former Rules c. Quo teneam tandem mutantem Protea nodo In the beginning of his book his premises were universal and general in this place they are limited and particular At the first there was a total alteration of Nature now a partial perhaps at the later end we shall find none at all But this is not all we must find other infirm parts of his Argument Certainly Aristotle as dull as he was would never have thus concluded nor any man that had read or well understood his Analyticks or the reason why they are so called Where he first supposeth the Conclusion which is the Res ignota as known and true and then infers it ex veris concessis so that if there be any thing in the premises which is not verum concessum then can the Conclusion be never truly inferred and the thing sought concluded Now Sir would I gladly see how you infer the consequence of your Major what have we to do to leap from Nature to Causes You ought thus to have assumed If there be now introduced as it were in Men and Diseases another nature Then Curations found out for Men and Diseases which now are as it were of another nature than formerly must be as it were changed But Men and Diseases are as it were altered in their nature Ergo. But in this Syllogism both the sequel of the Major and Minor are neither of them granted for there may be a partial and circumstantial alteration of a Disease and if you will of a Man without any alteration at all of the Nature of that Disease in its Cause or the Nature of the Man in its Cause But certainly when we can believe the Nature of Man can be altered in its Cause the next step will be to believe he may be altered in his species too May not a Fever that invades a Pocky or Scorbutick body have the same Cause though in respect of the Complication there may be a partial alteration in the Disease and consequently a circumstantial variation in the Cure I admit that the Cures of the Ancients were built upon the considerations of Diseases in their Causes but must not grant that the same Cause may not produce a Disease somewhat altered in circumstances So that if it were granted him which he hath no way proved and is not true that Diseases anciently known are at all altered in their Nature yet would it not follow that they were altered in their Causes The whole Argument brought into form ought to run thus Major If there be now introduced in Men and Diseases as it were a new Nature from rebellion and alterations not known to the Ancients in their Causes or taken notice of so fully as they ought to be by the later Physicians Then The Rules of Curation calculated for Men and Diseases now as it were of new natures from those alterations not known to the Ancients in their Causes or taken notice of so fully as they ought to be by the later Physicians must be as it were altered and changed Minor But there is now introduced in Men and Diseases as it were a new Nature from malignity and alterations not known to the Ancients in their Causes or taken notice of so fully as they ought by later Physicians Conclusion Therefore the Rules of Curation calculated for Men and Diseases now as it were of new natures from alterations not known to the Ancients in their Causes or taken notice of so fully as they ought to be by the later Physicians must be as it were altered and changed 'T is evident here that the whole strength of his Argumentation depends upon the introduction of a new Nature into Men and Diseases so that till that be proved 't
is not at all material to enquire into the Causes of this change nor whether the Ancients knew them or not but certainly he is very far from having proved either a total or a partial alteration of Men or Diseases in their natures All Ages have produced as great mortality and as great rebellion in Diseases as this and Complications with other Diseases as dangerous What Plague was ever more spreading or dangerous than that writ of by Thucidides brought out of Attiea into Peloponnesus What Complication now caused by the presence of the Pox or Scurvy in a sick body can make a greater alteration in any diseases than the Complication of the like disease with the Leprosie heretofore Doth he not believe there is as great a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the bloud by the Leprosie as the Pox yet those diseases were cured by the ancient Method why not these So that for ought I see we need not be put to the necessity of establishing new Doctrines Pag. 204. new Methods and Rules of Curation agreeable to the new frame of Humane nature and to the new Phaenomena of Diseases The old Notions and old Remedies may be good enough not that I shall discourage him or any man for increasing the Materia Medica with any new piece of Knowledge but dislike they should pretend to what they have not as many do to the dishonour of others far more knowing than themselves These things being considered this Chapter is not so hard but it may be read over without a Festuke or spelling-book and by those that have set up their rest without any new going to school by them Pag. 206. and yet the saying of prudent Celsus the Plagiary of Hippocrates may be true too Vix ulla perpetua praecepta ars medicinalis recipit which saying hath not relation to the Method or Art but to the Medicine and Person for though general Precepts may be given curare morbū they cannot be curare Petrum Paulum and I dare confidently averre that no man has been lost by the adhering to the Precepts of Physick though some may have by the misapplication of them in reducing them to use and practice whereas hundreds daily are cast away by the preposterous use of Remedies especially Chymical ones slovenly prepared by these Mountebanks and as immethodically appli'd at adventure In his next Breach he endeavours to draw to his Cause by the shoulders Mr. Boyle whom he often quotes and would fain induce the world to think him of his party the passage he tells you is in his Experimental Philosophy part 2. essay 5. he should have done well to have given us a little nearer guess at the place for that Essay consists of twenty large Chapters near half the book and I believe he hath particularly concealed it lest something might be found not to make for him Perhaps that Physician might think that Method fair which in it self was not and the party not killed by a fair but a foul Method But this Gentleman would from hence have us look upon Mr. Boyle as an Enemy to Method but pray hear himself Exper. Philos part 2. essay 5. cap. 18. pag. 266. speaking of the nature and causes of Diseases he hath these words Nor is the Method of curing divers particular diseases more settled and agreed apon that depending chiefly upon the knowledge of those causes which as I was saying are controverted 'T is not that I am an enemy to Method in Physick or an undervaluer of it but I fear the generality of Physicians for I intend not nor need all along this Essay speak of them all have as yet but an imperfect Method and have by the narrow principles they were taught in the Schools been persuaded to change their Method rather to the barren principles of the Peripatetick School than to the full amplitude of Nature You see with what caution this Learned Gentleman delivers his sense First the Method of curing divers particular diseases to wit as they may be in Craso or Celsus not that the general Method of curing diseases is unsettled Secondly that he intends not all but some Physicians though perhaps what he saith may fall upon the greatest part of them Thirdly that himself is no Enemy to Method though its Precepts do not answer to the sull amplitude of Nature What can be more cautelously laid down What is here to favour a casting away old Methods erecting new Foundations new Aphorisms and I know not what which our M. N. drives at Touching his opinion of Chymists and their costly application of Chymical Medicines in slight cases see what he saith chap. 6. pag. 147 148 c. 152. the words are too long to transcribe but in general he blames the Chymists as well in their unskilful preparations as not dexterous applications of their Medicines and is so far from tying up Physick to that Sphere onely that he propounds many great Cures performed by simple Medicines taken from Vegetables and Animals without any Chymical preparation at all As to that Noble Person himself I must tell the world I have had the honour to have been particularly acquainted with him now upwards of twenty years that I know him to be a Scholar and Valuer of Learning where he meets it he hath spent all his time from his very youth amongst Men of Learning and much of it in our Universities and therefore I am sure will give him little thanks that endeavours to bring him in as a Patron to those that decry Universities Degrees Learning and Arts endeavouring to bring in thereby Ignorance in the Professors and Contempt upon the Professions themselves I shall further adde I have frequently been in his Laboratory seen and been from him made partaker of many of his Preparations before the world knew them in Print have received from his own hand not onely the manner of the Preparations but the Medicines themselves which I have often used with success and have returned to him some of my own which he hath taken kindly from me But in all the course of this my knowledge of him have ever found him Free of a Communicable and Noble nature a Friend to Scholars free from that arrogance and pride of his Own Knowledge above Others whose Pots and Glasses these petty fellows who with so much boldness cry up themselves are not worthy to clean after him To this he hath added the communication of many excellent Preparations and other Medicines whereas this Writer and many other of his Complices pretend onely to a secret and concealed kind of Knowledge And in many other places of his book quotes this Noble Person very little to the purpose of which I shall take no further notice the Character here by me knowingly given of him being able to silence all Calumnies that by Consequences of their own drawing out of his words contrary to his meaning may be pinn'd upon him of which 't is none of the least that by this
of a Fever as this man aims at by his so much commending Ignorance and Empiricks Pag. 17. He tells you Fernelius speaks but lightly of Anatomy and in another place Galen of Herbs T is true Plantius tells you in the life of Fernelius that he disliked those that did ad extremum usque senium desudare in evolvendis anatomicis libris in cognoscendis simplicibus medicamentis nullum interim aegrum inspicientes nec quae à veteribus prodita sunt in aegris observantes He dislikes the spending a mans whole time in reading Anatomy of which he saith there are as many and as discrepant as there are diseases and spending your whole time in that employment without visiting the sick and taking notice of the observations of the Ancients but advises you to read diligently some one of the best both in Anatomy and re herbaria since a mans life is not sufficient to read all men What slighting is here of Anatomy of which he himself writ a Tractate T is true he advises men not to lose the end of Physick the easing of sick persons by standing altogether upon circumstances and things precedaneous to it I need not here enlarge my self in the commendation and necessary knowledge of Anatomy every days experience makes it evident that he that goes about the cure of diseases without a competent knowledge therof goes wildly and absurdly to work which way had Galen cured a lame foot by applying his Medicines to the back had he not known that the Nerves that run down from the sixt Vertebre of the spina dorsi had there their rise How can any Surgeon with safty so much as let blood or make an issue that knows not how the Arteries Tendons and Muskles lye And certainly the Art is exceedingly beholding to those persons whose industry and inclination gives them time and will to enquire more curiously into these things He that shall read Harveys works Dr. Glissons Book de anat hepatis Dr. Wharton de glandulis Pecket de vasis chiliferis and others will find how much the world is beholding to them for their pains therein and the Art enriched by their discoveries I must needs say of Anatomy and Botanicks what I have often thought of the general Study of the Mathematicks Without the knowledge of Astronomy we should in a short time lose the account of Time Navigation the knowledge of the Stars the foretelling Eclipses and many other things of most necessary use would be soon lost with mankind So without Geometry the measure of all things would be forgotten Surveying Architecture both Civil and Military and many other things insomuch that were their knowledge of as particular an use as it is of general concernment those professions must be the onely rich and admired of the world But the misery is that the Learning of some few men in those Studies is able to supply the necessities of a whole Nation T is just so in Anatomy and Botanicks the curious and useful speculations of some few are able to give a competent stock of knowledge to all others without wholly taking them off from their more necessary employment in the cure of diseases It shall suffice to have marked these things in transitu by which it may appear how unjust his dislike of that distinction of Rational and Empirical is and may serve to shew the venome that lyes scattered through his whole Book and ease me of some labor hereafter in the answering the rest of it and having thus shewed you what liberty in the profession of Physick was taken by the Ancients and allowed by all others and how unjust and noxious to mankind an Empirical and Tentative way is I might here make an end of the consideration of his first Chapter did he not call me into the lists again from a new Topick not yet by me taken notice of though at the very beginning That t is a matter out question that diseases of this present time are of another nature than they were in former times and undertakes to prove this and if that be once proved then it cannot be denyed we must proceed by other definitions of their nature and indagations of their causes and invent other remedies reasons and rules of curation than have been delivered by the Ancients I must acknowledge hoc magnum quid sonat if he make this good he and I must shake hands and be no more adversaries Let me examine his words Of another nature By nature here he cannot understand some circumstantial change or alteration in the subject as for the purpose a Fever in Peter may differ from that of Paul for this will not put us to new Definitions new indagations new Aphorisms new precepts and in sum of a general new Method and he cannot be ignorant of that trite Maxim aliud est curare morbum aliud curare Petrum Paulum He must therefore understand that either those diseases which were known to the Ancients are wholly lost in the world and New sprung up again in their room or that those which were known heretofore are now quite changed to another sort and nature I ask therefore whether Apoplexies Fevers Catarrhs Epilepsies diseases of the Ears Eyes Teeth and all other treated of by Hippocrates Galen Avicenna and the rest and now frequently invade mankind stand in need of new Definitions and new Curations from any alteration of their nature If he say yes I then ask from what cause this change can come for if the Disease be in this manner altered in nature it must necessarily follow that the Bodies of all Men and Beasts which are the subjects of them are altered in their nature as it must likewise follow that all Meats Drinks Fruits Herbs and all things that serve for the nourishment of mankind are altered likewise in their nature for it is unreasonable to believe that the same natural agent doth not act alike at all times caeteris paribus and consequently that all distempers that arise from the inordinate use of those things that should nourish the body or from any other disorder in the use of the six natural things are the same still not altered in their nature and so not standing in need of new Definitions c. Nay would it not be considered whether this new Doctrine doth not introduce a Transmutation of Species for perhaps it will be as easie to change the Species of mankind as his Nature and so a Mans body become that of an Ass as Pythagoras thought of the Soul Does he mean that many persons now adays in respect of the Complication of one disease with another require a different way of treating them than formerly they ought to have had in the same cases If he mean so t is absolutely false for where there is the same Complication the same method in the cure which hath been successfully used heretofore may undoubtedly be used again But in this I would not be mistaken as if we were
their cure The great severity of these Diseases now a days more than heretofore is indeed most doubtily proved out of the weekly Bills of Mortality collected by Mr. Grant and his own Observations worthy proofs to overthrow an Art by as if he knew not that in the world there can be no so fallacious a way of proof Every one is enough acquainted with the Searchers and their way of dealing who regard nothing more than to give the general account of the Dead and the Born and to let the World know when the City is infected with the Plague with whom nothing is so usual as to put one Disease for another Consumptions and Fevers are general names comprehending all sicknesses whatsoever and the mistake is in them no way material the end being onely to inform the Magistrates what Malignant Sicknesses reign and though that way be tolerable in Mr. Grant whose design is onely to prove the Increase and Decrease of Mankind yet from hence to prove the Alteration and Severity of Diseases to the overthrow of all Rules of Physick savours too much of Ignorance Self-ends or both He comes after this in his third Chapter to inquire into the Causes of the alterations of diseases from their ancient state and condition But till he had proved an Alteration such as would be subservient to his purpose in Diseases I need not trouble my self to follow him in his Causes yet that I may not seem to pass by any thing he thinks material I shall trace him in those also 'T is observable that the subject of his second Chapter that there is an Alteration in Diseases the third Chapter pretends to shew the Causes of this Alteration to wit The Pox and the Scorbute by their invasions made upon the universality of Mankind have been the two main causes of this alteration What the meaning of these plain words is may perhaps be a little intricate for if he here understand that these Diseases are solitarily in most bodies then certainly their presence cannot be the cause of Alteration of other Diseases that are not there with them If he understand their Complication with other Diseases makes such an Alteration as he contends for so that a Fever or what else assailing the body already infected with the Pox or Scurvy makes such an alteration as must change the Precepts of Physick this is the whole subject of his fourth Chapter and carries something of reason in it but then the third Chapter is wholly useless or as to those Diseases coincident with the second and onely brought in to fill up room and to bring in one whom he calls Doctor John Winnels Preface and to call this a wanton painting patching Pag. 69. perfuming issuing age Certainly all these Epithetes have been much more ancient than this age let him look upon Jezabel in the Jewish Julia Messalina in the Roman Rhodope Crispa of whom Ausonius speaks Praeter legitimi genitalia foedera coetus Repperit obscaenas veneres vitiosa libido Crispa tamen cunctas exercet corpore in uno Deglubit fellat molitur per utramque cavernam Nequid inexpertum frustra haec moritura relinquat Where is Wantonness equal to that described by Petronius in a Woman Junonem meam iratam habeam si me unquam virginem meminerim nam infans cum paribus inquinata sum subinde prodeuntibus annis majoribas me pueris applicui donec ad hanc aetatem perveni What wantonness in this age ever answered that of Messalina Ziphil quae efficiebat ut multae in palatio viris suis praesentibus ac videntibus cum adulteris coirent What Parysatis was author of his Sons incest with his own Sister in this age Plut. iâ— Aâ—tâ—xtâ—xâ— Where has Prostitution been encouraged or promoted by a Reward and Law If in this as in all ages something be amiss what has this man to do to upbraid the times being neither Divine nor Magistrate to whom the correction of Vices in any kind might belong for though the words are taken out of the Preface of another he that with applause transcribes them makes their Sordidness as much his own as they were before the Authors that first writ them And truly 't is no marvel that men of light Principles should be of loose Tongues He first tells us in this age we have lost Philosophy we understand not Physick and now we fail in Sobriety and Cood manners Pag 62. After this large Preface which hath given us the diversion of two leaves he falls upon a discourse by what means the Venereal and Scorbutick Miasms have gained ground in the world to wit by Carnal Contact ill Cures accidental Contagion hereditary Propagation and Lactation and is large upon every one of these heads To what purpose all this is and how it will serve his turn I see not except to usher in their complication with other Diseases which is the subject of his next Chapter as I touched before The Propagation of this Lues by Carnal Contact he passeth over to insist upon a truth of much importance to be laid open for the security of mankind viz. That after the committing that folly with an unwholesom person though there appear no sign nor symptom of a Disease for the present yet it may lie latent and lurking in the body many years before it make any discovery of it self either in its own noture or in the disguise of other diseases And in another place tells you Pag. 6â— that it may be in the Father lie quiet in the Son and at last discover it self in the Grandchild and whatever he saith of the Pox he would have you understand of the Scurvy also This he proves from prostituted Women who having long lived in that wicked course have infected many others without being privy to any ilness in themselves In which Assertion he begs two things which are impossible for him to prove first that those persons were not privy to the knowledge of any Infection in themselves notwithstanding they impudently enough might say they were not For truly 't is not hard to believe that those persons that will lie with their Bodies in those unjustifiable ways will also lie with their Tongues when 't is for their advantage either to make themselves appear more innocent or their Copesmates more confident Secondly that the Infection given to so many persons hath proceeded from a Disease long latent or perhaps one newly taken I much fear that Men and Women so given keep not themselves so constantly to the same person that they can tell either when they give or take Infection till by the succedaneous effects it discovers it self Something more reasonable might have been urged for him were he able or any other to prove that those hundreds infected as he saith by the same common Woman had never touched any other from whom they might possibly as well take it as from her that did not know her self infected From this he
being spent most upon Invectives against Hippocrates and Galen persons above the biting of his venemous tooth and the first as to his Cavils against his Aphorisms Prognosticks c. so fully and learnedly vindicated by Doctor Sprackling that when he or any of his Tribe shall give a solid Answer thereunto he shall then see what more may be added upon that subject onely let me adde this to the much materially said by Doctor Sprackling that he condemns some of them for their Plainness in which he discovers his own Ignorance not knowing that Aphorisms are short Determinations and therefore ought to be plain But pray Sir is it not as plain that totum est majus parte that the whole is greater than a part that if from equal you take away equal the residue shall be equal which may as well be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet these were thought fit to be laid down by Euclide as previous to his Elements and yet was never blamed for their plainness nay without them we should have been at a loss for many Demonstrations both by Euclide Archimedes and others made good onely per deductionem ad impossibile But because in his next Chapter he is so bitter against the frigid notion of Four Elements that we must away with them root and branch without being heard what they can plead for themselves I shall enter into consideration of the Compofition of Mixt bodies and though I would not be understood to defend that Doctrine in every thing but onely that those that make the principia corporum to be Atomi and those that make them Salt Sulphur Spirit Water and Earth either are the same with the four Elements or where they differ are subject to as inextricable difficulties as can be urged in allowing their composition to be from four Elements Fire Air Water and Earth An Examination of the Doctrin of the Elements and the Composition of Mixt Bodies TO him that considers under what great obscurities the ancient Philosophers laboured to find out the causes and beginning of things who being either wholly deprived of the knowledge of the Creation or but darkly comprehending the History of it delivered indeed very anciently by Moses but by most of them either not seen or not believed to wit that there was an Omnipotent Power who was able of nothing to create all things by the effectual operation of his Word concurring with his Spirit He commanded and they were made Thou sendest forth thy Spirit and they were created To him I say that considers these things it will not at all seem strange to find them sometimes run into errors which we see those that come after them in this fertile Age of Learning and deep search into Natural Causes cannot fully excuse themselves of Insomuch that had we that ingenuity which might deservedly have been expected from us by our dead Predecessors we should rather render them their due honour for many great Truths delivered by them to us when like our M. N. with too great presumption and boldness rail upon their persons with invectives calling the Philosophy of Aristotle dull the notion of four Elements frigid Galen the great corrupter Hippocrates his learned Book De Principiis slighted his Doctrine of Critical Days called as childish a conceit as was ever owned by any long beards called the children of men Without returning invectives against this Writer who lies open enough to him that hath a mind I shall onely with as much brevity as may be propound the several opinions as well of the ancient as modern Authors touching this matter and with as much candor as I can lay them down and then leave the Reader to judge where the most reason is I shall not enter into the subtil speculation de Materiâ primâ an Abyss fathomless and in which all that have endeavoured to penetrate have rather lost themselves then found that out and 't is no wonder for how can Man who is not able to judge of any thing but under the Idea of somewhat hath fallen under some of his senses tell what that is that cannot possibly fall under any one of them Plato Pythagoras and those of their Sect made the beginning of things to be what could not be comprehended either by sense or imagination but made it consist in certain eternal and unchangeable Ideas or Numbers Aristotle makes Privation to have the nature of a Principium for having disputed upon that subject Ex nihilo nihil fit he tells you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say That according to his opinion nothing could be simply made ex non ente yet per accidens it might for out of Privation which in it self was nothing having no existence something is made Phys lib. 1. cap. 8. Then after saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here he tells you That Hyle or Materia prima and Privation are different and of these that Hyle is a Non ens by accident but Privation properly that Hyle is near and as it were a substance or existence but Privation by no means Last of all saith Phy. lib. 1 cap. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is That Hyle is the first subject of every thing out of which what ever hath being not by accident is begotten By all which you may see how Aristotle was streightned to extricate himself in the business of the first beginning of things He found there was a necessity to admit in a manner something to be made out of nothing and yet not seeing how that could be tells you it could not be simply true but true by accident explains his meaning by Privation which though it were in a manner non ens yet gave beginning to something that was as the privation of one thing is the generation of another where Privation is but accidentally the beginning of an Entitie Then after tells you that Hyle is a Non ens per accidens but Privation properly so Why is Hyle a Non ens per accidens Because he could not comprehend how if it were admitted to be an Entitie and have existence there must not be something precedent which must be the matter of that matter and so there would be a climbing in insinitum All this I conceive proceeded from his not knowing the power of God to create all things of nothing and that Maxim Ex nihilo nihil fit was onely true à parte post not à parte ante 'T is true since the Creation nothing can be made by it self but must come from a seminal vertue by God's blessing given to the Creation that various things might be produced according to their several kinds but before the Creation it was not so But the speculation of these things being wholly Metaphysical I shall so leave them and refer those that have a mind to wade beyond their depths in them to what Vasques Scotus Suarez and all the Thomists have written upon this subject Yet withall let me adde this Observation
that both Plato and Aristotle who in many things disagreed yet in this accorded that from this Materia prima were produced the four Elements of Fire Air Water and Earth Plato ascribing to them their several forms The next sort of Philosophers we are to deal with are Democritus Epicurus and those of that Sect. Not that I am ignorant that Democritus lived before the time of Aristotle contemporary with Hippocrates and that Epicurus succeeded Aristotle Democritus Empedocles Anaxagoras and Parmenides lived about the 80 Olympiade and were lookt upon as defenders of a different sort of Philosophy then what was generally by others of their age thought most probable and most received some holding one opinion some another concerning the beginning of things as you may see them recited by Aristotle in sundry places in his Physicks his Book de Coelo and other of his Writings Amongst them all Democritus or perhaps one ancienter then he Leucippus broach'd that opinion that all things were at first made of Atoms though I confess I find not that word used before the time of Epicurus who flourished much about the time of Aristotle they maintained that the beginning of all things came from Atoms flying about in vacuo and that by their motion concourse all bodies were made They agreed not well what to call them some called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unities others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little bodies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plena densa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first matter of all things And Epicurus saith as Plutarch relates it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it was called an Atom not because it was the least bodie but because it could not be divided being uncapable of vacuitie See Gassend Phys sect 1. lib. 3. cap. â— Then they farther added they were aspera levia rotunda angulata hamata rough light round angled and hooked Plutarch tells you that Democritus allowed them magnitude and figure and Epicurus allowed them weight so that it seems they were both heavie and light Vid. Lactan. de ira Dei pag. 784. edit Hacky 1660. However be they what they will from these as the beginning of all things was the Universe made This opinion seemed so unreasonable that for nigh 2000 years it lay buried and forgotten till at last it was revived by Gassendus a learned Philosopher and Divine Regius Professor of the Mathematicks at Paris whom my self had the honour particularly to know and frequently converse with there and often about this subject I found him a man very communicable but to me would never declare his opinion to agree with that of Epicurus onely resolving to write his Life and Philosophie thought fit to propound fairly what might be said on that subject This opinion in my judgment labours under many and great improbabilities First they admit of no first Causes beyond the sphere of Nature and are disputed against by Lactantius as deniers of Providence They held there was no difference between Materia prima and Elementa That Atoms were both and had their beginning ab aeterno from no other cause but Nature or themselves against Aristotle who affirms Exelementis eterna fieri impossibile Secondly They were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little bodies that they had figure and weight so there was locatum but there was no locus for they did volitare in vacuo for in vacuo there can neither be space nor extension and a Body cannot be without both neither can we have any other Idea of a Body but what we have of Space Besides in Vacuo there can be no terms of motion Thirdly There is less absurditie to make maeximum divisibile the beginning of things then Minimum Nature might as well make a great bodie of nothing or let it be from eternitie as make many little ones out of them to make one great one for Maximum and Minimum differ not specifically and divide a bodie into what particles you please the matter is still the same and the magnitude would be the same could you restore the figure and a thing is called Maximum in respect of the matter not the figure Fourthly There can be no solid reason given for the passion of any bodie from this Doctrin for if the first Man were made from the voluntary concourse of Atoms they being impassible and eternal why is not the compositum so too There is in them no contrarietie and so can be no fighting between contrarie qualities which should cause either pains or death their difference being onely in figure This argument is used by Hippocrates in his book de naturâ humanâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a man be but one that is to say of one principle he could not feel pain Fernelius tells you in his Book de Elementis lib. 2. cap. 4. His argumentis tanquam fustibus vis illa turbulenta concursu atomorum immutabilium per inane volitantium in exilium relegata de naturâ mundoque depulsa videri possit Fifthly Aristotle in his Physicks demonstrates that a continuum cannot be made of indivisibles because in them there is nothing first nor last in regard there are no parts the Chapter is well worth reading over and confuted by those that think themselves able to do it Sixthly How comes it that all things are made with so great ornament if they came by a voluntary concourse of Atomes at first why have we not still the same things An infinitie of Atoms cannot be exhausted nor can any reason be given why there are not every day new Machines made equal to the frame of the world Why need we â—eeds of any thing that which brought them at first may continue them still 'T is strange to think this Machina mundi could be made by a concourse of Atoms and yet we never saw a poor Cottage so made Or at least whence comes it to pass that some new concourse of Atoms doth not disjoint and put this already made out of frame To say that here is a transition from Mathematical to Physical lines is but a meer effugium or cavil for what ever is Mathematically true is Physically true too if you take it under a Physical consideration and the line or Atom a c take it under what consideration or notion soever will be still shorter then a d c and so a d c not the minimum divisibile Again An Atom must be considered under the notion of a Quantity let it be the least But Diophantus will teach you lib. 4. Arithm. quaest 33. that an Unit that is to say the least quantity is in its own nature divisible To say that an Atom is divisible in its own nature but that nature never did proceed to the dividing it is to speak this not intelligible for how is it possible to consider a thing divisible in its own nature and yet not to have its beginning from something less then it self Neither can you have any other Idea of it then
the making more dark opacous bodies why doth he not then make as many Elements as there are diversities of densitie and rareness Secondly I cannot conceive how there can be any motion in those particles out of which these Elements are made For first it is admitted that the great Expansum hath extension and so consequently is filled with some body or bodies which must then of necessity be contiguous one to the other and consequently no possibility of motion except what is common to all the parts together like a bladder filled with air For either you must say that the several faces of these particles meet together which must hinder the motion or abrasion of one another or else the angles of some must meet and touch the plains of others then they will not complere locum solidum so that there must be an empty space not filled with any thing since that thin subtil matter that should fill up all these vacuities is not in nature till it be first made by abrasion Thirdly I see not Mr. Des Cartes make any contrarietie in these Elements and so the same inconveniences will follow that did from the other opinions to wit that there should be no passion death or alteration of bodies For if these three Elements be made one out of the other they must needs be homogeneous without any contrarietie and so subject to no corruption To say that it may come from some disturbance in the motion of that very subtile etherial matter which fills up the void spaces or pores in all bodies is very hard to conceive For first admit that such a disturbance in the motion of that matter might cause an alteration or corruption what extraneous matter should cause that disturbance I see not nature of her self never tending to her own destruction Besides from hence it must follow that corruption and alteration of all bodies comes from a cause without them and not from any thing that enters into the texture of the body or any indisposition of the parts thereof Lastly to say that those little particles that go to the texture of any body do of themselves disunite doth not avoid the precedent inconvenience for it may be asked why they disunite or what made them come together to seperate Neither can that be supposed of which no cause can be given vid. Magnen p. 302. Lastly I see little difference between this opinion and that of Democritus since they both agree there was an infinitie of small parts from the conjunction of which all greater bodies were made in this they differ one saith they are solid compact and indivisible the other that they are indefinite though not infinite divisible though not divided One makes the little Atoms first made by nature and that by their concourse the great Machine of the world was made the other saith the great Expansion was by God first created that the ornaments and elements thereof were taken out of the great mass by division and separation of the parts of it I come now to examine the reasons of our late Chymists touching the beginning or elements of mixt bodies and I shall as shortly as I can not onely shew their opinion but withall shew what deviation they have made from those ancient Hermetick Philosophers from whom they at first deduced their notions These late Philosophers by fire as they style themselves finding that the ancient Hermetick Philosophers made often mention of Sulphure and Mercury in their writings to which others added Salt and farther finding them to make frequent mentions of Sublimation Calcination Ablution Circulation Digestion Reverberation Fixation and the like and also of the different Vessels and Furnaces to be used in their Philosophical works adhering to the Letter but deviating from the sense not considering the simple and easie waies of nature in the production of things though ever inculcated to them in the ancient Writers presently fell to the invention of several Furnaces proper for those several works as themselves not the true Philosophers understood them who do not stick sometime to tell you that by Sublimation Calcination Circulation Fixation and the like they understand things quite different from what our vulgar Chymists mean nay that these several Operations are performed in one and the same Furnace nay in one and the same Vessel Nature being the true Philosopher who of it self excites the central and natural Fire that lies hid in the prepared Matter by the help of an artificial one in its degrees administred by the hand of the Artist So that Sublimation Circulation Digestion Calcination and Fixation are but different steps in the same work But this either not suiting with the humour or pride of later Wits who thought nothing very good that was not attained by great labour fell to inventing of several Furnaces proper for these several works thence came your Furnus Sublimatorius Calcinatorius Reverberatorius Circulatorius Digestivus and as many more as every man according to his several fancy pleased to think of Next finding that out of several things both Mineral and Vegetable by divers preparations and different administrations of Fire they were able to produce different sorts of Substances some inspid some quick and piercing some acid and sharp some viscous Unctuous and inflamable some saline some fixed have attributed to these Substances several names viz. to the watery insipid part phlegm to the spiritual or piercing Mercury to the unctuous Sulphur the saline Salt the fixed Earth and make these to be the five Principles or Elements of natural bodies So Mr. Le Febvre whose words are quoted by our Author pag. 270. understanding Principles and Elements to be the same thing So Mr. de Clave cap. 7. pag. 40. tells you they find onely five simple bodies in their last resolution and thinks them ridiculous who make any difference between Principia and Elementa So that these five Principles must by them at least by our M. N. be held up exclusive to those four of Fire Air Water and Earth the notion of which must be look'd upon as frigid and vain and these five lookt upon as the most simple Substances In this Disceptation it will not be unworthy our observation that these persons having deduced their notions of Salt Sulphur and Mercury out of the Writings of the ancient Hermetick Philosophers ought not in reason to be believed farther then they agree with their ancient Masters not where they differ from and fight against them now 't is very clear out of all their Writings that by Sulphur and Mercury they understood very frequently something latent in the Materia magisterii which matter they all held to be compounded of the four Elements by the circulation whereof in the Rota Philosophica the Magisterium was composed when they then called Sulphur fixum Vniversale solvens nay sometime Mercurius Philosophorum not but that there was in it before it came to this heighth both Sulphur and Mercury the volatil part of